Denon AVR-X1000 MCU Shorted

[R_J]

The headphone audio comes from the amp FL & FR amps, Can you access BN501 and touch pin 1 (FL) or pin 9 (FR) with your finger, there should be a buzz in the headphones on that channel if the amp is working.
What are you using for ground, as the chassis might not be at "A" ground.

[mmartell]

You are right I do hear hum AND audio from each channel by touching those pins.

I redid the readings with D_Ground and they are the same. D_GROUND ohms out with chassis ground.

[budwich]

that's sounds like a preamp problem then.
I used a cd with 1khz test tone (actually it had choices), input that signal and then traced the input with a scope to see where it disappears or went noisy / dc offset or otherwise.
Crown doesn't shut down for DC as it was a DC300... :-) not nice for speakers though.

[R_J]

Looks like the audio is selected by IC891 and fed to the amp

[budwich]

some more "ramble" from me... :-)
IF you look at the amp stage, at Q5x05/06, the circuitry around them is "mirrored". Of course, I know nothing about things like "push / pull", class A, etc... but IF the rails are "significantly different", then the "mid point" of the design which appears to monitoring as the DC detection point is going to be "non zero". I don't see much adjustment in the area so it has to be somewhere else. I think this is your problem. The dc offset is greater than it should be.

[mmartell]

I'm going to pull the amp board and go over it since there are a limited number of voltage checks I can do on the running amplifier section.

Incidentally, what should the channels look like as they leave the HDMI board (before amplification) ? If I put the meter on them I measure about 6v dc and basically no AC component. Seems strange and yet if I touch them with something I can hear the channel (with much noise) in my headphones...